XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB Alpha Dog Video Card Review

The XFX GeForce 8800 GT Alpha Dog Arrives!

Legit Reviews has published several articles covering the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT video card series, but today we bring you our first article on a production card from the folks over at XFX. The retail cards from XFX do differ from the reference design that we originally looked at a couple weeks ago, so be sure to read up on what we have already published before we jump into the new offerings.

XFX currently offers four GeForce 8800 GT 512MB video cards and the only difference between the cards is the clock frequency that they operate at.

Stock (600MHz/1.8GHz) – Model Number PV-T88P-YDF4

Overclocked (625MHz/1.8GHz) – Model Number PV-T88P-YDQ4

Extreme (640MHz/1.9GHz) – Model Number PV-T88P-YDE4

XXX Edition (670MHz/1.95GHz) – Model Number PV-T88P-YDD4

The version that we will be looking at today is model number PV-T88P-YDQ4, which runs with a clock rate of 625MHz and a memory clock of 1.8GHz. This is a 25MHz increase on the core, which should improve performance when gaming.

When we first sat the XFX GeForce 8800 GT 512MB next to the reference NVIDIA card something just didn’t look right. XFX implimented a larger fan and also increased the opening in the cover to let more cool air in. The slits on the sides of the cover have also been increased to improve airflow around the capacitors and other heat producing components. The changes to the cooling really paid off as the XFX GeForce 8800 GT was 15C cooler at idle and 8C cooler at load thanks to the increased airflow. Not bad considering the XFX GeForce 8800 GT Alpha Dog is running overclocked! Our review sample have a core clock frequency of 625MHz and the reference cards from NVIDIA run at 600MHz.